When a man is overcome by anger, he has a poisoned fever. He loses his strength, he loses his power over himself and over others. He throws away time in which he might have gained the end he desires. The is no time for anger in the world. – The Ancient One.
If you fill your mind with a beautiful thought, there will be no room in it for an ugly one. – King Amor.
My mother always says people should be able to take care of themselves, even if they’re rich and important.
I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden.
But I suppose there might be good in things, even if we don’t see it.
Mistress Mary Quite Contrary.
She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head.
She did not care very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she could console herself.
If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that – warm things, kind things, sweet things – help and comfort and laughter – and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.
When people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word – just to look at them and think. When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wished they hadn’t said afterward. There’s nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in – that’s stronger. It’s a good thing not to answer your enemies.
Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.
I dare say it is rather hard to be a rat,” she mused. “Nobody likes you. People jump and run away and scream out: ‘Oh, a horrid rat!’ I shouldn’t like people to scream and jump and say: ‘Oh, a horrid Sara!’ the moment they saw me, and set traps for me, and pretend they were dinner. It’s so different to be a sparrow. But nobody asked this rat if he wanted to be a rat when he was made. Nobody said: ‘Wouldn’t you rather be a sparrow?
That is the Magic. Being alive is the Magic – being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me – the Magic is in me.
Between the lines of every story there is another story, and that is one that is never heard and can only be guessed at by the people who are good at guessing.
At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for someone.
She had begun to wonder why she had never seemed to belong to anyone.
There’s nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in – that’s stronger.
That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy.
There is nothing so nice as supposing. It’s almost like being a fairy. If you suppose anything hard enough it seems as if it were real.
You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them until they stay in your mind forever and I think it will be the same with Magic. If you keep calling it to come to you and help you it will get to be part of you and it will stay and do things.